Rock 'N' Roll Nightmare (1987)
ROCK ‘N’ ROLL NIGHTMARE
WRITER: Screenplay by Jon-Mikl Thor
DIRECTOR: John Fasano
STARRING: Jon-Mikl Thor as John Triton
Jillian Peri as Lou Anne
Frank Dietz as Roger Eburt
Dave Lane as Max
Teresa Simpson as Randy
Denise Dicandia as Dee Dee
Jesse D'Angelo as Little Boy
Rusty Hamilton as Seductress
QUICK CUT: A band heads off to the middle of nowhere, so they can focus on their next album. They befriend a young child, and several locals, until everything falls apart.
THE MORGUE
John Triton - The lead singer of the Tritonz, a charming guy, magnanimous, but a bit of a himbo as he glides through life relatively clueless. But he has hidden depths to him.
Phil - The Tritonz manager, who seems to be a bit lazy, always on the lookout for the ladies, and a bit forgetful.
Stig - The band’s drummer, who always has his sunglasses and bad accent. Definitely a ladies man.
Just past the Middle of Nowhere, then take a left.
TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! I don't exactly know how it happened, but the mid-December review has been a rock and roll horror movie for years now, and I kinda love this tradition. And of course, the cult classic Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare has long been on my radar, and was in fact gonna be done last year...but the DVD didn't arrive until after the 13th, so it got pushed to this year. So let's continue this tradition, because WE LIVE TO ROCK!
The movie opens up idyllicly enough, on a family getting ready for breakfast. Mom is in the kitchen, dad is shaving, and their son is reading. The music is thumping lowly in the background though, so you know something is lurking...
And it doesn't take long to unlurk, as mom grabs some eggs from the fridge, and starts screaming. dad comes running to see what's the matter, and runs afoul of HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK IS IN THE OVEN.
Damnit Hannibal, make syre they’re dead before you cook them!
This movie definitely starts off pretty out there, and before you can say There is no Carol, only Zuul, we are "I smell bacon!"ing all through the credits. We then meet the Tritonz, an 80s hair band, looking for a quiet place to practice and prep their next album.
And wouldn't you know it, they end up at the same farm that just had a bad case of haunted oven, ten years later. So we meet the members of the band, including John the lead singer, and uh...Cool Glasses McGee who thinks he's Sting, and uh...the singers, and their manager Phil.
We spend a LOT of time getting to know the band, and yet I still don't know any of their names. Still, while they settle in, the movie does a wonderful job of setting up a foreboding atmosphere through music, and a sense of isolation.
It stinks!!
I will say this, I actually dig the music. One of the keys to metal horror movies, you gotta have a good soundtrack. If you're gonna make me follow a band getting murdered, you gotta provide the tunes. And while this soundtrack isn't the *best* and the lyrics get a bit repetitive at times, it's still solid.
At least, until someone takes the movie out to sea and we're suddenly underwater and hiding from the Red October.
But I choose to take that as a sign that things are about to start taking off, now that we've done intros and a musical interlude. And I am right because WHAT THE SHIT a weird one eyed monster creeps around and spits something out into Phil's coffee cup.
Dude, you just got dosed with puppet cum.
They end the song, and Cool Glasses McGee breaks his drumstick, sending Phil off to the basement to get a new set to replace them. He runs into Louanne, or a hallucination thereof, who strips down and tries to seduce him.
She quickly goes all monster face, and takes a big bite out of crime, er Phil.
The rest of the band hears the screams, and rush out to find him. They don't find a single thing, not even Stig's new drumsticks. They all brush it off, and figure Phil went to town, assuming he forgot to pack the drumsticks. With the mystery successfully, if wrongly, solved, everyone decides to rest.
We live to suck…your blood!
John, however, seems to think there is something off about the assumptions, and discovers the drumsticks are where Phil said they were all along. Is he just thinking something is wrong, or does he know more than he's letting on?
And when I say everyone goes to bed, it's more like everyone pairs off and has sex. Including Cool Glasses McGee, who is so on brand, he is still wearing his sunglasses at night.
But after he finishes, he heads to the bathroom, meets a beautiful seductress for all of five seconds, who just as he's about to go for round two, suddenly needs a giant napkin and better eating habits.
If your Ood is happy, then you’llbe happy too.
Meanwhile, a car of groupies show up to have some fun with the band. In the middle of nowhere. In the middle of night. "Let's go wake them up!" Look, even if this WASN'T a horror movie, this is how you end up in a horror movie.
They knock, Phil answers, and lets them inside. Yes, you heard me right, Phil. Death is not the end, in this movie.
Phil interviews the groupies, thinking they're there to join up and travel with them, and demands to see their breasts, and hey! Hey, Phil! Cool down, man! Hashtag metoo!
And bonus, Phil calls out these high school girls wanting to run with the adults, so they better be ready to play grownup games. Also...that makes Phil wanting to see them naked even skeevier.
These, uh…these are not high schoolers.
Everyone continues to not be worried about Phil the next day, and Roger and Mary get picked off in the kitchen by the lurking malevolent forces.
While their friends are being murdered, the rest of the band practices some more, serenading the married couple to their deaths.
Also, everyone comments on how much better Cool Glasses McGee is playing after becoming demonspawn. But no one notices he has lost his accent.
I don’t like this song!
Cool Glasses McGee heads off and go for a sexytime walk, and Louanne seems unsure about banging by the lake in the twigs, but she's digging the changes to Glasses.
He undoes his shirt and A GIANT BLOODY CLAW RIPS OUT OF HIS CHEST and goes after Louanne. And hey! She lets out the Willhelmina scream!!
And the group's reaction? "That's our friend screaming!" "Ah, she's probably just having sex. Let's do the same!"
There’s a hand in my heart that can only be filled by you…
Once all the sexing is done, Max and Deedee, I think, see the little kid from the start of the movie, spying on them. They give chase as the movie goes for a silly calliope type musical score. Because that sets the right tone.
Honestly, the kid is probably not happy to find all these people screwing all over his house. These two have about a 20% chance to be banging on his bed, even.
They follow the boy to the barn, where he goes full on feral and kills them. That's what you get for screwing on my bed!!
Where’s me gold??
John and Randy finish up, get ready for dinner, and are very upset when no one shows up. Gee, maybe because EVERYONE IS DEAD??
Fed up with this, John decides he'll at least get some writing done, and does some work with all this peace and quiet. In the meantime, a bunch of weird little critters run around to torment him, and it is hilarious how he keeps foiling them, while also just barely missing their presence and remaining completely unawares.
Meanwhile, Randy is in the bathroom and while we don't see him, she does say hello to a 'little boy' so I guess she's done for.
The last supper.
Randemon shows up and dramatically stands RIGHT IN A SPOTLIGHT to see how things are going with John's creative process.
She informs John that the band is dead, the van is gone, and there's no way out. John just scoffs and says that's absurd, the van's right out front!
This confuses the Randemon, who got rid of the van, and John is just so damned sure that everyone is not dead. Is...is he just that plain clueless?
This movie is…getting weird.
Randy continues to insist everyone is dead, including her, and she transforms into a giant puppet...er, giant demon.
Which is another occurence that John just shrugs off and is like, "Hey! Nice to seeya!" How...how can anyone be so unfazed by all this?
The Randemon calls forth his penile minions, to take down this one lone guy, which seems like major overkill. I'm sure it would just take one, and he'd be like, "Oh hey, how's it goin'? Lookin' for my spleen? It's a little to the left, that's my kidney!"
Demon gonna cut you!!
Randemon finds that killing someone so clueless is no fun, but will do it anyway, just like he killed John's friends. But he's not THAT clueless, as he lists off a number of demon names for the creature. For a rocker, John is pretty well read.
He also claims that no one is dead, and...what? No, seriously, what??
The demon demands explanations, and so do I, and John says no one died. They were mere shadows, creations to lure the demon in and WHAT.
Apparently, this was all a ruse to annoy the demon, draw him out, and John declares he is THE INTERCESSOR.
WHAT. AND I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. THE FUCK.
*throws my hands in the air* I give up. I don't even know how to process this. Jesus, this movie took a sudden sharp turn.
John declares he is Triton, the Archangel, and since the demon has broken the Creator's highest law by trying to gain a foothold in our world, he has come to KICK SOME ASS.
The rock music kicks in, and Bub hurls baby Starros at the Intercessor and THIS SENTENCE SHOULD NOT EXIST.
I am Triton the archangel, and my hair IS FABULOUS!
It is a shame they couldn't quite pull off the demon puppet, because it looks frickin' cool, it just CAN'T MOVE. And it hinders the climactic battle between good and evil, when your evil just kinda stands there flailing, and flinging starfish.
To Jon-Mikl Thor's credit, he gives one HELL of an impassioned performance, both as himself, and moving the creature as he struggles. He is IN for this, and just goes all out.
It's amazing that this fight is at ALL successfully pulled off, and I give credit where it is due.
DANCE!!
But finally, Bub can't take much more and basically says "Fuck this shit, I'm out!" and explodes out of the barn. As you do.
The war between good and evil never ends though, and John/Triton/Hairband McLeatherthong walks off into the sunrise, until the world has need of him again.
And until that day comes...WE LIVE!! WE LIVE TO ROCK!
OMG you shouldn’t have!!
TRISK ASSESSMENT
Video: Looks pretty good, although maybe some better lighting here and there. Overall, rock solid.
Audio: I am always pleased when a musical movie does a good job with the sound.
Sound Bite: “I’m sure Phil can’t be dead or something, he would’ve called first!”
Body Count: I’m not gonna count the final twist reverting the count to zero, and just revel in the percentage of dead we do get.
1 - Arouna a minute and a half in, and Carol gets sucked into the icebox
2 - And then some charred monster grabs her husband from the stove.
3 - Kid dies off camera, I guess!
4 - Phil gets eaten by a demon girl
5 - Cool glasses McGee gets groped to death.
6 - Roger gets yoinked off
7 - Mary gets grabbed by demon hand
8 and 9 - Deedee and Max gets mauled by demon child
10 - Randy gets possessed and dies.
Best Corpse: Hmmm, most of the deaths going unseen makes this tough. Can I go for Stig’s death, because of the hand ripping out of him, please?
Blood Type - C+: The actual blood content is almost entirely non existent, and while they’re silly looking, the puppetry work gives the movie a lot of points. And the final demon manifestation might be a failure of puppetry, but he LOOKS great.
Sex Appeal: Almost everyone loses their shirt in this movie, and there are breasts aplenty.
Drink Up! every time you can see Jon’s chest.
Movie Review: This…is a tough one. The movie takes awhile to get going, and that massive twist actually has a few tiny hints, even if they are little more than the “Hmm, something MORE is going on here!” variety. Beyond that, it’s well made enough, and the acting is solid where it needs to be. It’s a real trip. Four out of five one eyed monsters.
Entertainment Value: Wow, this…this movie. It seems standard enough, the kills are strange, but there is this pervasive feeling of “Something here is…off.” throughough the movie. The little demons throughout are strange. But then. Then those last 15-20 minutes hit…once John goes to work in the barn, the movie takes that turn, from the wackiness of avoiding the creatures, to Bub showing up, to…to the Intercessor. The movie goes from zero to 120 in half a second. I was having a good time with a solid enough horror slasher movie, but then it goes absolutely bonkers, and yeah, I love this movie. Five out of five Intercessors.
